To the ends of the earth

I wrote this. Can't remember when.

The question to ask here is:

N. is sitting at his desk which is semi-cluttered w./sheets of paper, empty cups, pens, empty cigarette packets. Lamp to the right and speakers to each side on the floor. In pride of place is a monitor – wide, bright, imposing, angled such that N.’s face is slightly upturned to it (establish connotations of worship). Underneath the desk is the actual computer – this large, black, glossy – many lights. N. is (smirking) and typing. Instant messaging window is open on his monitor currently. Now he switches to a browser window and starts to watch a video. Ordinary street view; after a few seconds a man falls over in a slapstick comedy fashion. Video cuts out, N. (smirks), returns to IM window. Types for a few more seconds then stands, leaves the room. Returns approx. 6 mins later w./cup of coffee. Sits again and starts to type. Sips the coffee. (N.B – music is playing throughout – medium-paced AOR) Continues sitting, switching between IM window and browser w./various videos which are generally similar to previous one. Drinks coffee. Eventually cup is empty. N. continues in same fashion, occasionally addressing (poss. sarcastic) remarks to subjects of videos (technically apostrophe). Foulmouthed.

Suddenly: behind N. door is smashed inwards, two large men in leather jackets burst in and as he turns drag him away from his desk, pin him against a wall. He makes various exclamations/protests, men don’t respond. Third man enters, this one pale/bald w./wide jaw, obnoxious smile, wrinkles. Nods to N., walks to his computer. Looks pointedly at computer, then at N (perpetually maintaining obnoxious exaggerated smile) and taps chin to communicate thoughtfulness. N’.s protests now have become screams, tears. Smiling man nods to communicate understanding, poss. sympathy, then turns to monitor and opens his wide mouth, bites out a chunk. Begins to chew, crunching sounds heard. Leaves traditional bitemark shape in the monitor. N. now completely breaks down, screams (heartrending) into the void of existence why oh why. Smiling man finishes chewing, swallows with obvious difficulty, widens his mouth so wide and engulfs remainder of monitor. Bites, chews, swallows. Then turns, prances to window and dives out through, breaking the glass. Men holding N. give one perfunctory punch to the stomach each then follow smiling man out of the window. N. doubled up in pain, giving keening sounds, these slowly morph into growls, pitch of which drops to a point unlikely given N.’s size/species. N. looks up, eyes turn black, sudden wings (batlike) burst from his shoulders and he swears a bloodcurse, an unholy bloodcurse upon the men who’ve done this; charges to the window and leaps out, flying like a nightmare into the night, a veritable storm of vengeance – but wait! They’ve left gargoyles to combat you, stone abominations crawling from the very depths of concrete hell itself – what will you do now, N.?

What will you do?

: 04 Apr 2010 22:02 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Three poems

These are pretty much the only poems of mine that came out of my poetry course which I actually like.

I mean, I like the course. It's just that everything I've written specifically for it has so far made me want to put my liver in a vice.

Anyway.

In order, the poems are: a blessing for a human; a valentine for a different subject; and a mashup (or synthesis) of two collaborative love poems with two collaborative hate poems, which I called late because I'm really funny.

Blessing

You need yourself. You need time for yourself.

The time you need to become yourself is the time

passing now.All time that can truly be said to exist

is the present moment, all time everywhere. You

have all the time in the world in which to be yourself.

You can be sure of yourself. You can shore yourself

up against those influences which make you unsure.

Your shores have been breached but you can assure

yourself that you are yours now.

It’s important that I’m clear on a few points:

this isn’t to release you because you don’t need me

to let you go. This isn’t to make you feel better

because you have no reason not to feel like sunlight.

This is just to ask:

how many times

do I have to tell you that

there’s nothing I can tell you

you haven’t found out on your own?

Valentine

makes you smile and driftwood looks like

whales scraped beachclean and the

shells are coming up and we’re

not running the salt always

hits first

and dunes are fat with grass and

bottles are easy empty and

catching ships this

should be covered in turtles the

houses are loud and

coves are not

but you wouldn’t think they get

predators here sharp grey and

who swims these days and

i wouldn’t want to live here but it’s

fun while it lasts

and let’s hear it for the

city on a hill sink one down with a

smile because it tastes

so much better with the

extra salt

which translates as i

miss you

Late

Holding on is/then I am submerged and

you are a cold shower;

stick in my throat.

Rain is: still watcing cuttlefish struggling in

water like plastic bags I asked

where is/but gold flooded.

Sea air is/your bones are hollow but your

wings must hang so heavy

By dawn you - or do you already know how

when you're in the room I tend to

shut up

Luck is not suffocating when your lungs

haze the wind sweet

Your bed’s warm and I don’t know what

love sounds like but I

can’t want you to

be calm

Flex and hit a vein I/roll the dice and every

time whether hand open and smile or

closed plus scream it always

comes up you

: 12 Feb 2010 15:18 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Is it warm in there?

(This was done for the portfolio)

So I was sitting on my bed watching The Departed which it’s a good film DiCaprio’s shown himself in recent years to be a talented actor really not deserving of the kind of savagery he received in some quarters after Titanic. I was a little way into the film and I thought about John who having felt he was unable to finish work on his model airplane had decided to become a televangelist, I told him at the time I thought there was a sort of logical gap there, he didn’t make any meaningful response. I returned to watching the film avidly. The Boston cityscape presented itself to me like pine needles biting through damp soil, it had a beauty all of its own which I wouldn’t want to see changed.

I heard a knock and opened my door to find a wooden doll around knee height looking at me, it said I’m the doll Descartes constructed and sent to a friend overseas via a ship. I said I thought that story was apocryphal it said no I said okay. What can I do for you?

The doll clicked its clockwork and smiled and said I need you to write my story. I was confused and I sat down making sure my bathrobe was still covering me as the doll looked strikingly like a little girl.

I said what story?

She said everything I’ve done in the past four centuries almost.

I said won’t that be pretty long?

She said I spent a lot of it in the ocean without much happening. You can kind of compress that part.

I said that wouldn’t compromise the overall vision of the piece?

She said no because if I was interested in making readers on some level experience the sheer monotony of being stuck at the bottom of the ocean not knowing whether you’re even moving let alone how far you are from land then yeah it might be useful and also if I wanted my readers to be aware that they were reading a story by making it painfully obvious that I was using a particular storytelling technique to remind them they were reading a story then I might do it. However my concerns in the text aren’t so much with the medium itself but more with the ability of the inanimate to really experience and the extent of humanity.

I said surely the self-reflexive aspect’s unavoidable what with giving a voice to an inanimate object modelled on a feminine form nonetheless no doubt making you in some ways a perfect other, even a subaltern?

She said thinking about the voice in any story necessitates thinking about the story itself as a form and as an object, that’s always been the case it’s just that it’s not my main concern and I’d rather it wasn’t my story’s primary action.

I said that’s understandable but given the importance of your voice to the story why do you want me to write it isn’t that pseudo-colonial?

She said I’m a doll, my fingers and hands don’t work that well.

I said ok but why me?

She said you have nothing better to do. Which I felt was offensive but fair. I sat wrapped in my bathrobe and watched the corner of the screen as the needles stood proud. Look, see them shining with that precious urban rot.

She said your old flat was nicer.

I said I had to move out.

She said do you call her?

I said I think we both feel there’s too much in the way.

She said well you should at least buy some new shirts.

And down on the street, a thousand gasps froze in the morning air, that morning air; doesn’t it make you feel alive?

: 29 Jan 2010 16:25 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Four Flashes

Writing about web page http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage

These are some stories based on tropes most of which I found on tvtropes.org but for the love of god don't look at that site or you'll be on it for hours. You have been warned.

Maria

First she killed them-

Then she saved them-

She got tired of them-

Threw them aside-

Began to talk to them-

Tried to understand-

She was evil in veins-

She never had a choice-

Drank the blood and spat at remorse-

She saw what she’d become-

Lay down arms-

Turned round to fight for them-

She’ll burn in hell-

She’s in the stars-

But, but the pages were all over the floor torn to pieces and the pictures drenched none of it made sense we didn’t know how to put it all back together we couldn’t it didn’t make any sense

Madness

He was insane. Completely unhinged. He’d – I couldn’t sleep at night knowing, I just knew he was out there. I could smell him there in the – not smell him, obviously I couldn’t smell him, but I knew he was there; he was there and he was watching my daughter and – do you know what that’s like? Do you have the slightest idea? You can’t understand it, can you, you – you people with your suits and your cameras – no, I’m not sorry. Why would I be sorry? No, I don’t know how old he – I can sleep at night now, my daughter’s safe now, I don’t have to have the locks replaced and keep the curtains drawn and mend the windows every day now – how on earth could I be sorry he’s gone?

Right. Or:

Please don’t tell my mother I showed you this. She won’t see it, she doesn’t watch TV. This – this is the book of pictures he sent me. That – he said we could live on that island. And – sometimes he drew me. I wasn’t asleep, I just wanted to know what I looked like with my eyes closed. Sometimes I’d find flowers on my bed. Sometimes it was grass, I don’t think he really understood the whole – did you know how old he was? Yeah, that’s – it was going to be his birthday in June. I got him a present, see – well, I’ll be fine. No, you should – you should leave now.

No I Don’t Hug Trees

You know that thing you sometimes see in films or tv or whatever where someone’s trying to work but it’s just not happening? They get all frustrated and do the angry sigh and screw up whichever piece of paper they’re working on – it has to be a piece of paper, really wouldn’t work with a computer or whatever – and throw it sometimes over their desk but normally to the side into a bin? Yeah, you know that. Well – my name’s Billy Madison and I know I’m not famous but if there’s one thing – nobody’s going to beat me when it comes to throwing that paper. I do this with care.

I’ll admit: it all started as pure procrastination. I used to be terrible, you know, the paper went everywhere and I couldn’t get anything done with a messy floor so I’d walk around picking it all up, putting it in the bin. I got so sick of having to do that, I decided to work on my hand-eye co-ordination in my spare time. Long story short – I got better. I started to move the bin round my study to make it a challenge but – and I don’t want to brag – it was too easy. Really. So – I got the idea of really, you know, making it hard; I put the bin on rails. It started small, I’d just push it and it’d go in a little circle for a while then stop but during that time – yeah, that was a challenge. I couldn’t exactly keep getting up to prod it, though, so I decided to motorise it. Sort of like scalextrix but – and then, well, just going in that one pattern was too predictable. So I expanded the railing. It’s not like I had much else to do, I really wasn’t getting anywhere with the book.

You should see it now. It’s my pride and joy. Yeah, it cost a bit, I had to sell my car and my desk but it’s worth it. The rails go all over my study and I’ve connected a basic switchboard to my computer and written a program that randomises the track shifts so – really – that bin can go anywhere. Hey, but do you know what’s cooler? I – and I’m not boasting, honestly – I never miss. Go through paper like a hurricane but, believe me, it’s worth it.

I Won’t Sleep

I spent seven centuries watching ambush predators to really get how surprise works. His face, when he sees me-

I followed four generations of killers first teaching then learning what can be done with the human body. Some days I shuffle the methods but I already know which I’m going to use.

I’ve sifted particles from supernovas and sphere by sphere made the knife; now I’m just waiting to use it.

I’m a genocide in the wings lurking just for him.

I know exactly how long his bones would last thrown into any one of the suns on which I perch. The figures are in measures which won’t appear on any reasonable scale.

You know every day (and when it comes I could just) I see her choosing him, her hands on him, her eyes on him, and I know nothing I can do will ever change it not ever because that’s what’s written in all the numbers/but/I can make him regret it/oh you know I’m going to make him regret it/and I wonder if he knew how long he’s got if he’d even bother being born

I stared at hyenas evolving, studied their bite slowly becoming perfect. When he sees my mouth he’ll-

: 04 Nov 2009 07:35 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Rainbow (a story for wearing)

Wrote this for a class. Fairly happy with how it turned out but it could probably use a bit of work.

The rainbow:

-      is light cleaned, prepared and divided;

-      in water;

-      into its individual threads.

(the moment the light enters the water – refracts – it is combed and twisted through teeth inside the raindrop until red, blue, violet and whichever other colours may appear are collected together but – essentially – not connected, every thread is carefully kept separate on one line alone.)

-      This happens instantaneously; the atmospheric droplets are manufactured specifically with this in mind.

-      These threads are then cast from the raindrop and carried by others in a processionary trail across the skies;

-      this being the arch of dripcloth; the rainbow.

The rainbow:

-      is sent to teach us the mysteries;

-      and beauty;

-      of fabric

(that we who with or unwoven skin cannot clothe ourselves only in light may practice the skills we will need on the ascension;

to wrap ourselves in brightness;

to sparkle in rain.)

Blessed be.

           Oh weaver;

Blessed be.

: 25 Oct 2009 15:06 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Hours of Waking

Although I started on it before I read it, this piece is pretty obviously influenced by David Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress which you should read too. Seriously, David Foster Wallace recommended it. He's the shit. Anyway yeah, there are in total thirteen of these little sections, might put the rest up later but it's a bit long for one blog post. Learned that lesson I think.

(I apologise for the spanish, it's been a while since I studied it)

Hours of Waking

1. My eyelashes flutter split to trickle like moth wings. A church flickers in and out of my windows. Sangre de Dios, siempre lo recuerdo. Diez veces. I worry the shields from my bones. Thighs. Perhaps today I will hatch birds, squeaking and bald. I will feed them with the day’s chorizo and with ashes stirred into water to help them stay alert. My pulse is shaking me out of joint. Pero es mía y no quiero cambiarlo porque es mía. I should collect the water from my roof more to wash away the sweat than to drink. The ceiling is clicking its tongue at me with definite reproach and shaking too but only in my eyes, which are blurred. His weight is still on me. I think my lungs may be aching to escape, they can sense strangers just above close enough to touch. Sometimes I am silent and I can tell they worry but my voice sits in satin safe in a crystal case away from their fingers tipped with droplets of our sweat. I keep it for my own. No soy ruiseñor. I can tell they worry. Perhaps I am selfish, perhaps it should be free for their fingers and hands. Doubtless it is a sin. I am sure I owe them something. One day I will know my place exactly, when I am sheet skinned. Will I seed the tears or be a toothed red heel?

2.   Steam is still clinging to the walls like cobwebs. The smell they say is roast but it coats me more like oil, which only burns. I liked how he held the cup with just two fingers. I saw it before but with glass. Was he so sure it wouldn’t drop and shatter? I wouldn’t have minded if it had. Perhaps it would have splashed over my skin and soaked a patch into a liquid birthmark. Water wouldn’t move it. Some of me is thirsty. Will I wash? If he is still there clinging to my back (I know he is) he might lose grip but oh and the outside lists the names again. Once veces ahora y los gritos son así: cielos y minas, muy viejos. I swear I can feel the slow boiling in my stomach. It will all mix together milky and dilute and then I will grow, and grow, and I will be too heavy to move. Who then will wash my birthmark? If I break our walls and run heavy with need to his door how will it look when I am sheet skinned? Will I seed the tears or be a toothed red heel? If sipping this could slide me into a perfect physical harmony – but no doubt I will see, at the close, that my phrase was meant to feel unfinished. But I feel all through me some red need to be reflected.

3.   No soy ruiseñor. My voice rises, the sun takes its hand, the day winds a smooth white scarf around its shoulders. Oh, I adore these sounds. Would this be cut away? Perhaps. It may, after all, be unnecessary in terms of plot or character. Still I would save it, I would hang the wasted reels in glass on my walls. They would glint, shine.

(my voice would drip, would corrode the floor)

I would let it stay. It would add depth and piece by piece all of me would be dredged from the ocean floors strung on fine wire. I would leave it/but it is not my choice. No doubt I haven’t grasped the intricacies of the piece as a whole. But I could know as I ache to and yes I ache to. When I am sheet skinned, will I seed the tears or be a toothed red heel?

           (my voice has missed the wire, is drowning)

Doce veces y mis orejas son enfadadas. Ahora, la media, pero no cambia nada. Centre of balance, to either side everything must tip (and yet the world I see is level). I should turn my back but then I would find myself alone like corn. Time is running from me. It slides and it flows, so set on escape. I should perhaps try harder to hold it. The corn fields, I am told, keep theirs trapped tight to their thin chests.

4.   14: and that dress was like a little girl’s, I, was like a little girl;

17: perhaps it moved. I won’t (ask won’t) know;

18: I, oh I can split their crossed hearts, whatever my skin I will forever breed want;

9: and am /I/ (their doll of me) which? Will they tell me when I am sheet skinned? Will I seed the tears or be a toothed red heel?

Perhaps I should frame these, although they’re little better than lesions and hardly precious; although it’s true, I would be sad to see them damaged, stained, flaking. I am at my best, I think, reflected in (approximations of) glass eyes.

(sencilla vez ahora, es la una la única la sola y es como-)

My ears are scented with the nails but – how will I sound?

Will they play:

Twisting genius clouds and dead encoded ocean floors?

Or will they play:

Sweat dances they see written on my skin from birth?

Or perhaps:

Smoke coiling through blazing reeds?

(I don’t know how I (should) will sound)

Still – here on sheets I am still, he has pinned me still. Did it move? I won’t (ask won’t) know. Brief stations on a long line but surely he was as taken as I with the magic, the vision. One vision: una vez. Todo empieza con (no, empieza antes de) una. I could drown suspended between the two in nothing. Hay tantos lugares desiertos.

: 22 Oct 2009 07:52 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

cool face

Just because.

was walking between trees

hung with metrehigh thin canvas

prints of leni and veidts the man

who laughs a silent classic

thoughts on the topic interrupted

by mobile phone buzzing

hornet in my pocket digging

us both back into a world with

sound the phone was shivering

my time away aging me years in

moments

so turned it off stared into

sideways eyes where was

he smiling under the knife

with his shades could easily

find him in a rorschach test

but wouldnt reflect well on

me probably

fog stuck in conversation

with branches made the

only movement in the day

my untimely aging

somewhat uncomfortable with

that

but on the plus side nothing

dripped down no rain no

birds if theyd come theyd

have brought rolledup pictures

but not veidt maybe something

by hopper fitting if theyd been

pigeons but in the end they

didnt come

would find it harder to do

this kind of thing in his

preferred background anyway

maybe best to find my

way out turn my phone

back on that way can

connect up find out

where im going

: 18 Oct 2009 16:55 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Scorched

This is for shouting. Or maybe I just thought of it as being shouted. Mostly. Oh well.

Every day you break my skin, every day you crack me open and feed and I know you need it but you breed in my cuts, in my toxic skin and I am becoming thin becoming bulimic you all you make me sick – I will spasm and out of my mouth throw you out spinning circling into nothing you will drown in vacuum and you will never be buried I have freed my skin from your filthy hungry nails

Is it wrong to just to just sometimes

You all live in dirt it – grows and it swamps me tides me over and drowns me in filth, I am so shamed you spit on me and again but I will sear you away I will crush you and wash my wounds clean I have seen myself I have been free of you I have been beautiful I will again one by one I will snap out of my skin all your filthy hungry nails

Is it wrong when you think when you tell me I should love you

And I deny all blame defy it I leave it snarled and twisted in coiled woods where the trees will pluck it apart I know I told you to live I know I spawned you weak and wet spawned you meek and set you here all new yes I know where you came from but I never told you this you worked this out alone with quill and skin when you sharpened up your filthy hungry nails

Is it wrong that I could have could always have told you to stop

Now you crack me open again but no I close myself to you I will cut you loose from me I will bite through the pulp the soft pulp you suck, it will dry and you will – remember – these things I told you in stones told you in all those clouds and waves in the shells you treasured they gleamed you shone but you never once read them when you picked them up and scraped them with your filthy hungry nails

Is it wrong  the way I laugh when you can’t swim

Still I won’t shake I not for you I will never shake I, cast cold and swimming round and round a mother still not dead I with burning brothers sisters in ice all of them silent I for you I will never shake you – can’t ever think I owe you, you, writhing there in my pores slick in blood in poison I, I have shown you the cyanide you love it now drink it now you will shake for me you who owe me for your birth you now will crack and take it pick it up you swallow and when you have finished you will lick beneath your filthy hungry nails

Is it wrong to like the quiet

: 15 Aug 2009 20:01 |  Comments (10) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Poems from large portfolio

Wrote stuff for big portfolio. This is some of that. Might add more later, might not. WAAAH.

Evil

So hell sticks to them all. Sown up and down

on arable land, fresh and red it screams.

The crops it births spread rabies. Redenned men

who eat them will turn butcher and make gowns

of skin. The women carve themselves to leave

a pretty skull. Their homes are ash; corpse dens.

And demons swoop through clouds, steal children. All

the mothers cry; the fathers roar. Split seas

claim thousands. Scylla and Charybdis. Birthed

by gods we’ve scorned, they’re vengeful. So we fall

to knees, we pray for mercy. They won’t leave

us. Only souls can care. They worship hurt.

But I know that I’m safe in my calm sleep.

No fangs drip here; the only mouths that turn

and smile for blood have no dull human teeth.

I know evil only comes from demons.

Sleeping Beauty/Sleeping Giant

I could drown in slumber. Worlds are doused in

sleep, the oceans of it coil together

swarms of faces in the glass-clear blue. Thin

and calm we float oblivious kept pure

by hands that burn the poison. They won’t let

it in our ears. We’re all so safe in fur

and down; they must be angels. Taxing debt

with grace, they’ll let us sleep forever if

we promise we will only dream of them.

And all the unwatched waves will grind the cliffs

to pebbles; soil will starve and trees will choke.

There’s nothing we can do. So hard to lift

our heads and anyway we’re weak and soaked.

The demons would just laugh us down. You wait;

for all we make one more will be invoked

to tear it all apart. In here their hate

can’t touch us and that’s all we need. So trust

the hands; you know that they can deal with fate.

You know what demons do; they’ll murder us

if we look up. I know what demons do.

They’ll murder us if we look up. It’s just-

I had a different dream. I saw into

the hands, into their hearts. They fed

us poison sleep. The demons that we knew

could kill us, they were nowhere. We were red.

Dreams were heroine. Nothing there was damned.

We were bred for rape but I looked down, bled,

and saw the knife not chained into my hand.

: 11 May 2009 19:28 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Urban myth based story

This was based on an urban myth that I messed with slightly. It was an exercise for a fiction class. Guess this means I have no creativity left.

A girl has a snake. Python. Long and strong it coils inside its glass tank. She feeds it every day. It is her snake and she loves it. What would she be without her snake?

One day it won’t eat. These dead mice, she throws them into its glass tank. She dangles them by the tail, jerks them so they look alive, scared and mannequoid. It curls itself away and looks at her with its flickering tongue. She stands there holding the dead mouse by its tail moving it with her wrist but the snake won’t eat. So she drops the mouse into its glass tank and she walks away.

At the vet’s she is not yet distraught but worried. Days now have gone and it won’t eat. Days now it has coiled itself inside its glass tank in with heat and vegetation not eating the rotting dead mice. She can’t take them out because when she puts her hand inside the tank now its coils shift, liquid muscle, twisting circles that look ready to trap her in. They flow over the mice and she can’t get at them. But it won’t eat them. The vet doesn’t know quite what to do. She tells him what type of snake is her snake, make and model. He shakes his head and reassures her that he will find out what’s to be done if he has to travel to every corner of the earth.

Back she comes to her house and her snake still lies in its tank, python. She looks at it looking at her with its flickering tongue. (Won’t look away. So look. Look up, look out, everywhere we move we’re followed with the look. You look at you looking at me you look away. I look at you looking at me you look away.) She walks with a dead mouse to the glass tank and dangles it inside. It looks up with its tongue all interested and she thinks it’s going to take the mouse but it doesn’t move. The hope dies down in her and she drops the mouse in and goes away.

At night she sleeps in her bed, alone but not lonely. Blankets like skin over her she rests and her worries ferment. Dead snake in a mouse becomes its tail, eats its own tail, encircles the world that is a glass tank in which she sits and is jerked up and down to look alive. Mad to think that so she wakes up/she wakes up touched. Something is under her skin. Snake, python, is seeping into her bed and lying alongside her. It stretches itself out long and strong, liquid muscle unfurled uncoiled. It doesn’t move. She stares. In the night, under her skin, she can hardly see it. It seeps away into the night, out of her skin like sweat and back to its glass tank.

At the vet’s she is far more than worried now. She tells him her tale and he blinks and he asks her its make and model. She tells him again and he says, “Kill it.”

Won’t eat the dead mice because it digests slow and the emptier it is the bigger the prey it can eat.

Looks like a trap inside its glass tank because it hunts based on patience and stupid prey.

All interested when her hand comes inside its glass tank with the mice because her hand is so warm.

Stretches itself out next to her under her skin to see if its skin can fit her in, fit her all inside so it won’t split open when it dislocates its jaw and stretches out its mouth ready to swallow.

“Kill it before it kills you.”

And she goes home with the world circling around her head like a nauseating halo. Inside her house she walks and the glass windows have all steamed up. Vegetation has spread over every wall, cascading down. Hot and steamy it’s almost hard to breathe. She sweats. Into her bedroom she walks and she sees the glass tank shattered in shards on the ground. On her bed, stretched out is her snake, python, its mouth distended out wide fit to vomit out its eggs. Transparent and thin-fleshed they ooze out, forced by rings of liquid muscle. They fall from her bed, some split and the infant snakes drown. Some land and roll into corners and the gestating pythons bite their way out and slide into the vegetation. The snake spits out another egg and looks up at her.

“Look, bitch,” it says. “You knew I was a snake.”

: 28 Jan 2009 13:55 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem